"The unseen exists and has properties." - Richard Ford*

[SpiralHawk]

Discuss amongst yourselves.




* The Lay of the Land

[eShirl]

1. Magnets.

[Brickbat]

2. Seriously, how the fuck do they work?

[Salviati]

4. Relativity

Magnetism is a consequence of making electrostatics play nice with special relativity.

http://van.physics.illinois.edu/qa/listing.php?id=2358

http://physics.weber.edu/schroeder/mrr/MRRtalk.html

[Brickbat]

14. I screwed the lyric up.

But here's the reference.

http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/fcking-magnets-how-do-they-work#.TrL06mCXvJw

[Salviati]

35. Yeah, I know :)

but I think it's cool that the answer to "fucking magnets, how do they work?" is relativity.

[hatrack]

22. . . .

[Speck Tater]

9. Each magnet is home to tens of millions of microscopic magnosprites.

These tiny fairy-like beings have a spider's ability to spin webs but not of silk. Rather, these webs are of invisible, and highly elastic pranamaya kosha, (the type of kosha or कोश that holds thing together) otherwise known as aetheric astral ectoplasm. When these tiny creatures fly from one magnet to another nearby magnet, spinning their tiny webs as they fly, they create an astral connection. Upon arriving at the second magnet they pull the web tight, and if the two magnets are free to move, they respond to this increased astral tension by moving towards each other.

See how simple it all is?

;)

[SpiralHawk]

10. That's what I woulda said

If only I had thot it.

Sublimely simple.

[xchrom]

3. In Miami. Nt

[valerief]

5. The .01%? nt

[hifiguy]

6. There was a great show on Nova last night

that discussed this very thing - dark energy. Fascinating stuff. Wish I could do math. Then I'd have been a cosmologist instead of an attorney.

[Uncle Joe]

17. That was a good program, at one point they mentioned we and reality as we see it might be holograms

and I thought of Socrates and Plato.

[Abin Sur]

7. "If it can't be expressed in figures, it is not science; it is opinion." ---Robert A. Heinlein

Another quote from the greatest SF writer of all time:

"Anyone who cannot cope with mathematics is not fully human. At best he is a tolerable subhuman who has learned to wear shoes, bathe and not make messes in the house."

[hobbit709]

8. +100

[SpiralHawk]

11. The fiction guy, Heinlein, is prissily pimping materialism

which is cool, as far as it goes, which isn't very far. He might want to give his fiction thingy a rest, get serious, and check out some actual unseen reality. Help him to unbunch his psychic undies and stuff.

[kentauros]

12. I would guess he's been doing that for a while now,

seeing as how he died in 1988 ;)

[Abin Sur]

15. And materialism is inadequate..how exactly?

[SpiralHawk]

18. You quote fiction from a dead guy and then ask

how materialism is inadequate.

There you go.

There you have it.

[Abin Sur]

19. What does his being dead have to do with anything?

And for that matter, how is a particular statement any less true for having been used in a piece of fiction?

Neither of your points address the adequacy (or not) of materialism.

I'm sorry, but I don't follow your argument at all.

[sibelian]

25. I believe SpiralHawk is referring to

The ideological component of Heinlein's assertion. Which, as an entity, is somewhat difficult to pin down via the otherwise reliable mechanisms of materialism. Ironically.

[Abin Sur]

28. Perhaps I'm just slow today, but what exactly is the ideological component of

the assertion, "If it can't be expressed in figures, it is not science; it is opinion."

If ideology is defined as a set of ideas that constitutes one's goals, expectations, and actions, how does a statement on the nature of science impact that?

[sibelian]

36. You've answered your own question!

:shrug:

[Downwinder]

20. Heinlein's fiction is becoming our reality. n/t

[Abin Sur]

27. I wish...depending on the book, of course.

I wouldn't want to wind up in the world of The Puppet Masters! His future history eventually becomes a pretty cool place, and many of the settings of the juveniles would be good.

I just want to live in a world where a physicist and three Boy Scouts can build a nuclear-powered rocket to the Moon and fight Nazis once they get there. Is that too much to ask?

[Downwinder]

30. How about water sloshing in the White House and fundy states?

Where is Lazarus Long?

[Abin Sur]

34. Since Nehemiah Scudder is about to be elected (at this point in the Future History),

I presume he's keeping his head down. Like all members of the long-lived Howard Family, he's under what amounts to deep cover during while Scudder is in power.

[sibelian]

26. Can that statement be expressed in figures?

[Abin Sur]

29. No it can't...but then, that statement isn't "science" as such, is it?

[sibelian]

37. It's an assertion

so it's subject to the same processes as all the other assertions Heinlein seeks to quantify *with* it.

It's a mess if it can't support itself on it's own terms. I know that sounds like nit-picking but really it isn't, it's the main flaw in logical positivism, which essentially is what Heinlien's advocating. If a philosophical assertion contradicts itself...

[Downwinder]

33. Have to check with an economist.

[FarCenter]

13. "unseen" as in does not interact electromagnetically? Or as in not visually perceived by an animal?

Dark matter or neutrinos are unseen because they do not interact via the electromagnetic force.

On the other hand, the inside of a golf ball is unseen because all that an organism visually perceives of an intact golf ball is the outer surface.

[robdogbucky]

16. You mean like those radioactive pellets in his prostate? n/t

[RagAss]

21. Yes...a good onion fart can clear a room !

[Warren DeMontague]

32. damn.

you 'beat' me to it, Kerouac.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

23. Mitt Romney?

The Mittness Protection Program guy is up to how many houses by now?

[Octafish]

24. That is a really profound statement, now that you've brought it to our attention, SpiralHawk.

Beyond our inability to sense most of what passes for reality, let alone exists, it really is an interesting question:

Can consciousness affect the material world? Jack Sarfatti says it's possible.



Thanks, SpiralHawk! The Rev served it up on a silver platter, to borrow a phrase.

[Warren DeMontague]

31. farts.

case in point.